How to Remember. Three chief principles of Perfect Memory. How to create accurate, organized and reliable memory.
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009How to Remember
The principles through which accurate, organized memory may be cultivated compose one of the chief major subjects of psychology.
What a wonderful ‘‘gift’’ is that of a perfect memory—the ability to recall both names and faces of people whom we have met, and of sense impressions which have reached our subconscious minds through what we call ‘‘experience.’’
We need not try to convince you that a reliable memory is an asset, because you already know this. Let us hasten, then, to a discussion of the three chief principles of memory, which are briefly defined as follows:
- Retention—The receiving of the sense impression through one or more of the five senses and the recording of this impression in the subconscious mind. This process may be likened to the recording of a picture on the sensitized plate of a camera.
- Recall—The reviving again of those sense impressions which have been recorded in the subconscious mind, and bringing them into the conscious mind. This process may be compared to the act of going through a card index and pulling out a card on which data had been previously recorded.
- Recognition—The ability to recognize a sense impression when it is called into the conscious mind, and to identify it as being a duplicate of the original. This enables us to distinguish between ‘‘memory’’ and ‘‘imagination.’’
How to Make Effective Use of These Three Principles
First: Make the first impression vivid by concentrating your attention upon it to the finest detail. Just as the photographer takes care to give an ‘‘exposure’’ proper time to record on the sensitized plate of the camera, so must we give the subconscious mind time to properly record any sense impression which we wish to be able to recall with readiness.
Second: Associate that which you wish to remember with some object, name, or place with which you are quite familiar and which you can recall at any time without effort as, for example, your home town, your mother, your close friend, etc.
Third: Repeat that which you wish to remember a number of times, at the same time concentrating your mind upon it. The great failing of not being able to remember names, which most of us have, is due entirely to the fact that we do not properly record the name in the first place. When you are introduced to a person whose name you wish to be able to recall instantly, stop and repeat his or her name two or three times, first making sure that you understood the name correctly.
An accurate memory is something which you can acquire in exactly the same manner that the photographer acquires accuracy in his art, namely, by properly exposing the negative so that all of the features, outlines, lights, and shades of the object photographed are recorded on the sensitized plates of your subconscious mind!
There are many exclusive courses on the subject of memory training, some of which have been padded out in considerable length. All you need, however, is to grasp the fundamental principles through which the memory functions, and soon you can develop an accurate memory. To do this, you need not follow any formula too closely, but rather invent your own method. Some remarkably accurate memories have been developed through the use of the principle of concentration alone.
Rules and formulas are confusing. The best method to follow is to get a clear understanding of the fundamental principles through which memory can be developed, and then apply these principles in your own way.
